Sourdough Starter School, Step 6: Bake It! (Tartine)

Equipment needed for the actual baking (finally) of the Tartine Bread Country Bread:

Cast iron combo cooker or dutch oven

Very thick oven mitts or hot pads (seriously. THESE PANS ARE HOT. DO NOT TOUCH THEM WITHOUT SERIOUS HEAT PROTECTION OR YOU WILL BURN YOURSELF INTO PAINFUL KINDS OF PAIN)

Leftover rice flour/wheat flour mix

Clean kitchen shears or a razor

A place to cool your bread

You’ve let your bread rise at a slowed rate in the fridge for 10ish (and up to 12) hours, so that means you’re ready to score and bake it. Pull one of the dough balls out of the fridge and lightly sprinkle it with with some of the remaining rice flour mixture from yesterday. Place your cast iron cooker (both pieces) in the oven and heat it to 500°F. I have a thermometer in my oven, so I know that when my oven says pre-heating is over, it’s lying. Let the oven (and the cast iron cooker) heat for 20 minutes before you move on to the next step, even if your oven tells you it’s ready earlier.

Try cutting with a blade and a pair of scissors to see what works for you

Scoring the bread with kitchen shears does an imperfect job, but it’s easier than dealing with a razor blade.

Scoring dough for people who are terrible at scoring dough

Using very thick oven mitts, pull the shallow piece (skillet) only of the cast iron cooker out of the oven and place it on your stove. Invert the dough into the skillet. Now is the time to score your loaf. I am also terrible at this. A lame (a scoring tool that literally translates to “blade”) or straight razor is the tool of choice for experienced bakers, but I always end up butchering the surface with a straight razor, so I usually use kitchen shears to snip 4 shallow cuts, one on each “side” of the circular loaf. As you can see, I don’t do either method particularly well, but man, are these breads beautiful. You have two loaves to play with, so you can try a different way with each. Scoring is really important because it lets the bread “vent.” If you don’t score, your loaf won’t bake up beautifully and you may get a loaf that cracks a big ol’ crater somewhere else. Work quickly so that you can get that hot pan and bread back in the oven ASAP.

After 20 minutes, remove the “lid” and put your half-baked loaf back in the oven to brown and crisp

Baking the Tartine Sourdough Country Bread

Using very thick oven mitts, put the larger piece of the cast iron cooker in place as the lid over the shallower piece and stick the whole thing back in the oven. Set the timer for 20 minutes. When it beeps, remove the cooker from the oven and take off the top. You should notice a large amount of steam coming out when you do that. Your loaf will be puffed up, but kinda white, like those half-baked loaves you can sometimes find at the grocery store. Place the skillet and loaf back in the oven, and reduce the heat to 450. Set the timer for 20 minutes.

A two-loaf recipe means you can try a couple different things with shaping, scoring and rising.

When that bell dings, you should have a beautifully browned loaf with tons of flavor and character. Move the bread to a cooling rack and put both parts of the cast iron cooker back in the oven. Turn the heat up to 500. Remove the second dough ball from the fridge and and allow the oven to fully heat again before repeating the process with the second loaf.

Let the loaves cool for 2 to 4 hours for best results (I think a bread that is allowed to cool has a nicer crumb and Robertson says the breads last longer/hold up better when fully cooled).

One thing I love about this book, is that despite recognizing that a full cool is better for the bread, Robertson gets that sometimes, you just need to dig in to that mofo while it’s still hot. You have two loaves, so why not crack into one hot and let the other one cool completely to compare?

Try to wait until it’s cool before slicing.

I have suffered through months of making this bread to bring this sourdough series to you, so I hope you appreciate my painful, painful struggle 🙂

That crackly, crispy crust comes from using cast iron to steam the bread in the first 20 minutes of baking

This doesn’t taste bad slathered with some raspberry jam and butter.

The result of a shallow score with kitchen shears. Definitely imperfect. Definitely delicious

Comments

I don’t have a copy of this book but would like to understand the part of the process that follows the creation of making a sourdough starter. That’s the part that has always confused me. Once its made, what do I do? How often does it need fed? How much?

There are a couple points in this series where the continued care of your starter is covered. The crux is, you’ll want to go back to step 2 and give your starter daily feedings in that manner, always making sure to save some when you make your leaven. If you don’t want to feed, you can store it in the fridge and feed once a week instead, but you’ll need to feed it steadily for a couple days before you bake your next load. I hope that helps!

Hello! I have a Peter Reinhart starter(75% hydration) according to his book, and it has been fed all whole wheat. My family is a bit sensitive to the sourness of bread but we have been trying to convert to a whole grain and sourdough based bread. However, they are so used to the sweetness of white flour, so I have been trying to find different ways to mask the sourness or tartness of the sourdough. One thing that keeps popping up is reducing the hydration level of the sourdough starter and keeping at cooler temperatures as well as trying to catch the starter right at or before it reaches its “peak.” My starter is only 1-2 weeks old, and I actually have to refresh it for the first time tonight. Instead of trying to reduce the hydration, someone told me that the Tartine book and the Flour, Water, Salt and Yeast book dealt with starters that had lower acidity and helped mask the sourness. I was just wanting know if you can confirm this before I try making a new starter or reducing my current starter down to 50%. I know it’s best to use white flour but we are trying to keep everything whole grain so I know I will have to make adjustments. If you could help let me know what adjustments to make in keeping a lower acidity I would appreciate it. If it helps to know, but I mill my own flour, I have a Hard Winter Red Wheat and a Hard Winter White Wheat that are the equivalent in protein to Bread Flour. Thanks for any answers you can give me!

I would agree with everything you’ve heard. Cooler fermentation will definitely decrease acidity. Shorter fermentation will as well. I love sour bread, so at times, I really push the limits of timing.

I wouldn’t worry about starting from scratch. Just start feeding your starter more frequently (like every day) for a few days before you bake. And I really recommend the Tartine book. I adore Peter Reinhart and everything he writes as well. I think the Tartine book gives a really great foundation for sourdough specifically, though.

We love this bread. The first couple of times it got perfect. Now all of a sudden it doesn’t rise overnight in the fridge. What am I doing wrong? I have been experimenting with different flours. Does that make a difference?

Hello, I absolutely love your instruction above – they are very clear and illustrative! I was very excited through making this bread as my dough seemed more gassy and more alive than any other batch I’ve baked using other recipes. HOWEVER, I just took it out of the oven and it has virtually no spring ! :((( I baked in a Dutch oven, managed to make two shallow scores (which I hadn’t been doing before , so I thought this should make a difference ) and otherwise followed the instructions to the letter. The only aspect that went slightly awry was that my levain never floated, despite letting it ferment for 12, 14, then 18 hours. My room temperature is about 73. Anyway, I barrelled ahead because otherwise, the levain seemed very bubbly and ripe.
Is my starter not strong enough?? If so, how can I strengthen it? It seems to rise and fall consistently and is about a year old. I keep it in the fridge.
Thanks so much for any advice.
I will definitely be checking out your kombucha pages.

Hi there,
I’m abit confused about the flour mixture. In your previous pages you instruct us to make a whole wheat/white flour mixture but on this page you mention a flour/rice flour mixture. Are we to use rice flour when dusting the board and dough or do we keep using the original whole wheat/white flour mixture.
Looking started my starter today and am looking forward to making bread next week.
Many thanks for your blog.
Teresa

Thank you so much for this series! I just finished baking (and tasting) my first ever sourdough loaf using your instructions and I am super pleased. I think my loaves could have risen a little more, but I only learned how to properly fold and shape at the very end of my process and it is in the negative outside this week. This is the best bread I’ve ever tasted and I shall be making many more!

I used a bit of the 80% starter from day 2 and let it grow a third day, then mixed it as you directed. Turned out really, really great – thank you so much for these wonderful directions! Despite struggling with shaping, it turned out just fine. Thanks again!